Australian Immigration Daily News

The Department of Home Affairs has updated their Policy on labour market testing requiring business sponsors to undertake LMT within the 4-month period or since any redundancies or retrenchments have occurred. This includes redundancies occurring in associated entities of the business.  Exemptions to LMT are limited and the sponsor will generally be required to produce LMT on lodgement of 482 nomination unless international trade obligations apply. 

The previous regime allowed exemptions based on occupation as well as skill level of the nominee.

To satisfy the LMT requirement under the new current rules, a business sponsor at the time of lodging their 482 nomination must provide the following information:

Implementation of Skilling Australians Fund Levy

Department of Home Affairs has finally implemented a long awaited SAF Levy on 12 August 2018. The following visa subclasses are impacted:

• Subclass 482 TSS
• Subclass 186 ENS
• Subclass 187 RSMS

The levy amount is determined by annual turnover generated by the sponsor. For example, a business with an annual turnover of less than $10M can expect to pay a one-off levy amount of $3000 per ENS or RSMS nomination. In the case of subclass 482 nominations, relevant levy amount for a business with the same turnover is $1200 per year.

The Migration (Skilling Australians Fund) Charges Act 2018 (the SAF Charges Act) is an Act relating to the ‘nomination training contribution charge’ (the charge) payable by persons who are liable to pay the charge under the Migration Act 1958 (the Migration Act) and the Migration Regulations 1994 (the Migration Regulations).

The charge is imposed on employers who nominate workers for temporary or permanent skilled work visas.

The SAF Charges Act commences on 12 August 2018. Section 7 of the SAF Charges Act imposes the charge payable under section 140ZM of the Migration Act. Section 140ZM is inserted by the Migration (Skilling Australians Fund) Act 2018, which also commences on 12 August 2018.

International travellers departing Australia will now be able to check into their flights on their phones.

From today, 6 August, airlines will be able to issue electronic boarding passes for international flights. Travellers will now be able to show their boarding pass on a mobile device instead of using a paper boarding pass, while following the normal border clearance path at the airport.

The Australian Government lead on seamless travel, the Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Alan Tudge said the move towards automation at the border was a key focus for the Government.

I have just lodged my online repeat registration as a RMA, and the payment system on the Office of the MARA website is now working again.  My repeat registration fee was successfully processed on the OMARA website today.  

I believe mine was the first application to be lodged online since the online payment system went down.